As technological advances are made in communication equipment, and computers are more highly integrated into the telecommunication networks and systems, the ultimate goal of communication service providers: obtaining “real-time”, “seamless” access to all parties; is becoming an ascertainable target. “Real-time” access refers to the ability to contact a party instantaneously as opposed to paging the party or leaving a message. “Seamless” access includes the ability to reach a party regardless of the party's location, or the time of day. In achieving this goal, a party can always be contacted by callers regardless of the parties location. The task of maintaining real-time, seamless access is not trivial.
One solution presently in operation is the Personal Number System (“PNS”), which is described in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,764,747. The PNS from BellSouth Wireless gives a subscriber the ability to be contacted by other callers regardless of the subscriber's location. This is accomplished by providing a single point of contact for each subscriber in the form of a personal number. In addition, each subscriber provides the system with communication routing information in the form of one or more “destination lists” or “routing lists”. The routing list contains various directory numbers that identify phone lines where the subscriber may be accessed. Calls placed to the subscriber's personal number will be routed by the PNS to the various destination numbers until either the subscriber is located or the list of destination numbers has been exhausted.
In the PNS, the subscriber has the flexibility to change the routing lists or alter the manner in which they are utilized. Methods to alter the use of the routing lists include enabling an “override” feature. The override feature allows the subscriber to disable the use of the routing list for a particular caller or all callers, and force the incoming call to be routed to a particular alternate number. Upon disabling the override feature, the system will resume the use of the routing lists. Another feature of the personal number communication system is to allow the subscriber to provide different routing lists for different days of the week or specific time slots within the day. Thus, one routing list may be used on weekdays from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, another routing list on weekdays after 6:00 PM, and a third routing list on weekends.
The general operation of the PNS call routing feature can be described in the following steps:
(1) When a call is placed to a subscriber's personal number, the telephone system will intercept the call.
(2) The telephone system will then identify the called number as belonging to a subscriber of the personal number communication system and will then determine the type of service to be provided.
(3) Finally, if the call requires routing, a routing list will be retrieved and call attempts to the various destinations will be made until the subscriber is located; however, if the subscriber cannot be located, the incoming call will be routed to a default destination such as voice mail.
More specifically, when a call is received, the PNS determines if the called personal number requires facsimile services. If so, the system will determine whether the call attempt is a facsimile transmission. If the call is a facsimile transmission, then the call will be redirected to a device to store the facsimile data until the subscriber, at a later time, retrieves this information. If the call attempt is not a facsimile transmission, then the system will determine whether the call is an administration call. An administration call is initiated by the subscriber and allows the subscriber to modify his service options, retrieve any voice mail that might have previously been stored, or obtain download of prior facsimile transmissions.
Finally, if the call requires a routing service, the PNS will identify the calling party and prepare an identification announcement for the subscriber. The identity of the calling party may be determined in several ways. One method is by performing a reverse white pages database lookup using the phone number of the calling party as a search key. Alternatively, the identity can be obtained by prompting the calling party to provide identification information by keypad entries. Once the identity is determined, an identification announcement message is prepared based on the calling parties identification. The PNS also may provide the calling party with a personal greeting from the subscriber, or a standard greeting. The greeting requests the calling party to hold while an attempt to locate the subscriber is performed.
While the calling party is holding, the PNS continues by retrieving a routing list for the subscriber. The routing list can be selected from several routing lists based on the time of day, day of the week, or any other system established criteria. The numbers in the selected routing list will be sequentially accessed until either the call has been successfully routed, rejected, or the list has been exhausted. The routing operation is performed by selecting a first directory number from the routing list and redirecting the telephone call to that number.
If the call is answered, the identification announcement is delivered to the answering party. The answering party is prompted to provide disposition information indicating whether the call is formally accepted or formally rejected. A formal acceptance occurs when the call is answered and the answering party provides an indication that the call is accepted. This indication may take the form of pressing a key on the phone to transmit a particular dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signal or simply maintaining the phone in an “off-hook” state for a specific period of time. A formal rejection occurs when the call is answered and the answering party decides not to accept the call. Similar to a formal acceptance, a formal rejection can include pressing a key to transmit a DTMF signal. In addition, the party can return the receiver to an “on-hook” state within a specific period of time. A call is considered to be successfully routed when either a formal acceptance or formal rejection is received. If the call is not formally accepted or formally rejected, then the call is informally rejected. An informal rejection implies that the call was not successfully routed to the destination. This can occur when the call is (a) not answered, (b) a busy signal is received, or (c) the call is answered by an answering machine, recording or error message.
In response to the call being formally accepted, the PNS routes the communication to the successful destination. In response to the call being formally rejected, the PNS routes the communication to a default destination which can be specified by the subscriber. In response to the call being informally rejected, the system then attempts to route the call to the next destination in the routing list and again requests communication disposition information. The system continues to request communication disposition information from each sequential destination in the routing list until the communication is formally accepted, formally rejected or until the last destination on the routing list is reached. Once the destinations on the routing list have been exhausted, the communication is routed to a last or a default destination.
While the PNS has made substantial advances towards providing seamless access to a subscriber, there is a desire for achieving this level of service in a more efficient manner. One method to improve the efficiency of this service would be to include the ability to select a routing list for an incoming call based on the identity of the calling party or a calling line identification (CLID). The need for this capability exists in both the realms of business and personal calls. For instance, a sales representative visiting a first customer's office would not want to have calls from a competing customer routed to him at that location; however, it would be desirable to have calls from an expecting wife routed to that location. In addition, a subscriber may want to route calls differently based on the type of call (i.e., business, personal, solicitations). The ability to route calls based on the identification of the calling party or calling line is advantageous because a subscriber can (a) limit interruptions due to personal calls; (b) reduce the amount of hold time required for business calls by eliminating routing locations where the subscriber would not be found during business hours; (c) give priority service to important calls; and (d) give restrictive service to unwanted calls.
One way to implement this routing capability is to utilize separate routing lists that are selected based on the identification of the calling party, the type of call, or the originating line.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method that would route calls to a party based on the identity of the calling party.
Further, there is a need in the art for a method to route calls to a party based on the type or purpose of the call.
Furthermore, there is a need in the art for a method to route calls based on the identity of the originating line.